Llorente, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mbappe – wanted but not on the market

You’ll remember that period last summer when the great Italian centre-back Leonardo Bonucci couldn’t go a day without Chelsea trying to buy him. But did you ever think how annoying that was for his club, Juventus?

For one, he was Juve’s best defender. And for two, Juve have been better than Chelsea for years. The sheer cheek of it.

But back then the Serie A champions resolved to one day wreak revenge on the Blues. Ever since they’ve been biding their time, concocting cunning plots and devilish ideas, and now they have finally chosen the moment to unleash their wicked plan.

As wicked plans go, it’s not very good, but presumably it’s the best they could come up with. Fair enough.

The Sun reports that Juve have made “initial contact” with Chelsea about taking the England vice-captain to Turin as a replacement for Bonucci, who has joined AC Milan (who have also been worse than Juve for years – revenge will come to them too).

The Old Lady is tipped to lodge a bid of £16.5m for Cahill, a rather paltry sum which would get you about half a Jonny Evans in the current market. But Chelsea might still be interested, because Blues manager Antonio Conte apparently no longer sees the Englishman as a first-choice player and would rather have Southampton’s Virgil van Dijk.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of this story, however, is a ‘Voice of the Fans’ poll on the Sun’s website, which asks Chelsea supporters to choose which they would prefer between “Van Dijk” and “Chill”.

After such a tumultuous summer in the transfer market, most Blues fans would probably love to chill for a bit so presumably they chose that (or was there possibly an ‘a’ missing somewhere?).

Evans offer No.3

Meanwhile, Conte is “increasingly optimistic” of luring Arsenal’s contract rebel Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Stamford Bridge for £35m, reports the Telegraph . The midfielder has been offered £180,000 a week to stay at the Emirates, which is a nice amount of money but the problem is that he would have to play for Arsenal.

Chelsea are also reported to be ready to pay Swansea £15m for Fernando Llorente…

Speaking of Jonny Evans, the Times says Manchester City are set to make a third offer of £25m for the West Brom defender. Although even if the clubs can agree a fee, the move is dependent on the Baggies signing a replacement (they have targeted Tottenham’s Kevin Wimmer) and City shifting Eliaqium Mangala, which will be no easy task.

City have, meanwhile, given up trying to sign Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi this summer, according to the Sun . Spoilsports.

Elsewhere, Liverpool are preparing a move for Bayern Munich’s Portuguese midfielder Renato Sanches ( Mirror ), Barcelona are set to allow Turkish midfielder Arda Turan leave the Nou Camp on a free transfer ( Sport ) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic has taken a £200,000-a-week pay cut to rejoin Manchester United ( Times ). He will now have to get by on just £125,000 a week – you can send donations direct to Zlatan via his Just Giving page.